*BLUF
Berachain apparently gave Brevan Howard (a Series B investor) a $25M refund right.
Good morning,
If you don't know what Berachain is, I’m glad.
It's DeFi's deep end: where blockchains banner themselves with bears ripping bongs.
But, an excellent case study on blockchain projects (credible / not credible), what suspicious sounds like, and what happens when things go sideways.
Bearly awake before ☕️,
Austin Campbell
Teaching Blockchain & DeFi at NYU
Talking to institutions at Zero Knowledge
ZERO IN
BACK UP
🌎 BERACHAIN BEARS
Built by the creators of the NFT project “Bong Bears”, Berachain is ETH, only if it came from Temu.
In order to raise institutional round, the creators claimed their blockchain : "Best at moving money." True, if that means moving $BERA from $8.00 dollars to $0.91 cents.
BACK THAT UP
BERA-PAIN PAIR
Let me kill the “market conditions” & “crypto winter” cope.
2025 YTD:
$BERA: $8 → $0.91 (−89%)
$BTC: $83K → $90K (+8%)
Credibility check: $BERA dropped 89%. Anyone credible down 89%? Bitcoin's up 8%. Bad news for $BERA.
BUSTED
BERA-UNFAIR
Here's the part they didn't put in the pitch deck:
Berachain apparently gave Brevan Howard, who invested $25M in the Series B round, a refund clause. Deadline: February 2026.
Not a discount. Not "liquidation preference."
A refund. Like returning a sweater.
Everyone else? Stuck with a worthless sweater.
BREAKING
UNCHAINED BARES
November 24th.
Ex-Blockworks reporter Jack Kubinec broke the story.
Posted the receipts: Docs. Dates. Dollar amounts.
Berachain? 48 hours to say "this is fake" or "this is real."
BAD REP
BERA-LY COHERENT
Same day, "Smokey the Bera" posted this smokescreen:
✖ Attacks Jack the Journalist
✖ Avoids answering, cites “compliance”
✖ Blames "disgruntled” ex-employees
✖ Redirects "Clause wasn't exercised" …yet (nobody asked)
Does this refund clause exist? Y/N?
Smokey wrote 15 paragraphs but “no” wasn't in any of ‘em.
ZERO OUT
IT’S SMOKE? IT’S 🔥
Berachain built a two-tier system. Tier one gets refund clauses. Tier two gets "thanks for the liquidity." Busted? 15 paragraphs of cope.
Blockchain projects: if you're chasing institutional money like BlackRock but building a trust deficit like Berachain? You're NGMI.
ZERO TIME
▸ Someone used Cardano. It broke. Hoskinson called the feds.
Peer-reviewed blockchain can't peer-review its way out of one guy sending transactions.
▸ "You're telling the CEO of IOHK, founder of Cardano and Ethereum, to use the support email?"
Yes. Yes we are.
▸ Tens of users! Thousands of dollars of fees per year!
Even Hoskinson sold an NFT on ETH, not Cardano.
ZERO INSIDER
Big paper on US banking market structure—dropping next week. Bits & Bips (continuing to co-host Mondays at 4:30pm).
"Stealing The Future: Sam Bankman-Fried, Elite Fraud, and the Cult of Techno-Utopia" is out. C-Span BookTV taped the release —After reading it, drop us a real review.
1 More on Berachain & Brevan’s $25M refund rights? Jump to Zero Insights.
2 Missed out? Read Zero In letters 011 on Bernie Being Right, 010 on Luke Knots’ Committee Crusade, 009 on Stablecoin wars (Plasma + Cloudflare)